Plastic Logic (Finally) Shows Off The Que, Its (Very Expensive) Kindle Competitor
After promising to deliver its take on Amazon's Kindle for a couple of years, Plastic Logic is finally delivering: Here comes the Que proReader, which the company promises is “more than an eReader"-it's a “paperless briefcase.”
Context & Ripple Effects
Plastic Logic has spent roughly two years promising an answer to the device Amazon launched back in its November 2007 Kindle debut, and the Que proReader finally shown off this week pitches itself as more than a reader — a "paperless briefcase" for business documents. The company is not going to market alone: last July it lined up Barnes & Noble as a partner and distribution channel aimed squarely at the Kindle.
The timing matters. Per confirmed reports from late December 2009, Christmas Day was the first time customers bought more e-books than physical books, driven by hot Kindle sales, and Amazon called December its best Kindle sales month ever. Plastic Logic is entering a market whose demand curve just inflected — but at the top of the price range, against a rival with proven holiday momentum.
First-order effects
- Amazon now faces a competitor positioned above the Kindle rather than against it: the Que targets business users carrying documents, a segment the Kindle's book-centric design does not explicitly claim.
- Barnes & Noble gets a hardware shelf-mate in its push against the Kindle, giving its store network a premium business device to merchandise alongside its own reader strategy.
Second-order effects
- A high-priced entrant gives Amazon room to defend the low and mid tiers with aggressive Kindle pricing while ceding the niche business segment, forcing buyers to choose between ecosystems rather than devices.
- Content lock-in becomes the battleground: with confirmed reports of Scribd building an alternative delivery route for Kindle books outside Amazon's sole channel, a new device backed by Barnes & Noble strengthens the case for multi-store e-book supply.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, the e-reader market stratifies into mass-market consumer devices sold near cost to drive content sales, versus document-oriented professional devices competing on form factor and workflow — different economics for each tier.
- Plastic Logic's long path from promise to product illustrates how plastic-electronics manufacturing scales slowly relative to software-driven rivals, a structural disadvantage for any startup betting on novel display technology against incumbents with mature supply chains.
The trend: E-readers are splitting into a consumer tier where Amazon competes on price and content volume and a professional tier where challengers like Plastic Logic bet on form factor and partnerships with booksellers such as Barnes & Noble.